


blue.

by orphan_account



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: So I finished it, ish, this is so old but i wanted to post something anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26924017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Sora breathes, and his chest is tight with words left unsaid and feelings left restrained, memories bubbling and fizzling at the edges and he knows they aren't his but they are, he can feel them, taste, see, and he misses--Sora comes home, and things are (almost) normal.
Kudos: 4





	blue.

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhere after KH2, but before KH3.   
> maybe.

Sora is home, but there is something within him that feels wrong. Something that feels less like a wrench shoved into his chest, and more like something is ripping out an entire cog that he needs to function. He feels…He feels unhinged, emotions pouring out of their careful packaging and instead bleeding all over his insides, colors and smells and sounds that–

—they are sounds he knows he shouldn’t be familiar with, but for the life of him, he cannot shake the familiarity that pulls and tugs at his heart(s) and tries to force nostalgia through his bones and beyond the boundaries of his skin. He pretends it doesn’t work. He pretends he doesn’t hear the echoes of train tracks being trekked through his island and that his ears don’t strain to hear the whistle that’s sure to come in just a moment, _any second, it’s going to blare and he’s going to be able to tell which direction to turn to catch sight of—_

There is no whistle and there is no train; the sky is blue and the ocean laps at his ankles.

He is home and it is the only home he has ever known, and he pretends he doesn’t feel like crying. The salt in the ocean stings his nose and the shore brings a chill that sends shivers down his spine in a way that should feel familiar, but instead, just feels wrong. The sun beats down on him through an unmasked sky but he can’t feel it, can only feel the rain that sheds from clouds that aren’t present and the reflection of neon lights that he’s only glimpsed and he wants to _bawl._ To scream until his voice is raw and spent, until the torrents inside of him are expelled and he’s left with nothing, _nothing,_ nothing to scorch his insides the longer it’s allowed to remain. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to breathe with all these contradictions in his chest and he can only take deep breaths with his eyes, blown wide and unseeing and taking in so much yet not perceiving a single thing.

“Sora?”

And then he –

_he—_

blinks.

Sora blinks, and it’s dark, and he can feel goosebumps prickling his skin around where he’s been touched by a hand that he knows and Sora _laughs._ The hand on his arm doesn’t retreat but he can feel that warmth flinch, fingers curling and tightening the tiniest bit like a resolve or a promise and Sora can feel a tiny part of himself break.

He shifts his eyes and they burn against his eyelids, but he can still hear the way the sand crunches under the weight of another and can practically feel Riku’s gaze burning into him like he’s trying to ignite something inside.

It’s a shame that everything he has is already doused kindling, though he doesn’t say it.

“I’m fine,” he says instead, but his voice comes out rough like he _had_ been screaming even if the torrents remain. “It’s been a while since we’ve been home, huh? I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it, and I guess I…got a little too absorbed in remembering? A lot has happened.”

The waves crash against his ankles and his legs and he doesn’t remember—when had he sat down? He can hardly feel the laps of the shoreline anymore, doesn’t know how long he’s been out here and when exactly the cold had seeded itself within him like everything else, but he knows that he _should_ know. He’s an islander; Destiny Islands is the only home he’s ever known and he _definitely_ should know about water safety. The tides were especially brutal after sundown ~~when had it gotten dark?~~ and he knows this so thoroughly that he can’t even recall when he’d been taught.

Yet here he was, ass-down in wet sand with wet clothes and legs that feel like they haven’t been moved in god-knows-how-long and it’s only now that his breath comes out in a shudder that’s more from the cold than anything else.

What in the worlds had he been _thinking?_

“…Yeah, it has.”

Riku’s voice sounds subdued from beside him, and Sora blinks his eyes back open and glances towards him. He knows that look— that brooding, guilty half-lidded adverted gaze that only sometimes has enough steel behind it to show that Riku knows he’s _grown._ This, however, was not one of those times, and Sora would have punched his shoulder if he could move his arms. He didn’t know he _couldn’t_ until just now, so instead he squints and nudges Riku’s hand that’s still rooted on his shoulder.

“Totally worth it though. So, uh,” Sora flexes his arms, stiffly moving them and unlinking them from around his knees before they sort of waver in the air as he tries to force them to bend. “Can I get a little help here? I didn’t realize I was two minutes away from being a true bonafied popsicle, and I sort of _need_ these limbs to whack things.”

Riku looks back at him finally— _really_ looks, up and down until the guilt is slowly replaced by a rolling exasperation, and he pulls his hand back to stand up straight.

“Sora, _how long_ have you been out here?”

And Sora huffs, rolling his shoulders and adjusting his seating in what is probably the most uncomfortable, stiff-bodied-booty-scootch that he’s ever had. And that included all the times he dropped after a brutal fight without any sort of cooldown. He grins nonetheless, and the look Riku gives him makes it worth it.

“Uh, a while?”

The complimentary groan that follows makes Sora laugh again, even as he’s pulled to his feet and sent clumsily stumbling against his friend for support.

“Kairi would murder you for this,” Riku huffs, and Sora just snickers further as the shivers kick back in and he forces a few unsteady, numb steps towards where he’s being lead.

“Yeah, well, Kairi’s off with the ultimate space heater on a world far, far away. So she wouldn’t know unless _someone_ tells her.”

There’s a small beat of silence, one that Sora almost ignores as he forces his legs to try and remember how to human, before Riku eventually whispers back, “I might.”

And Sora _whines,_ honest to god whines, because the last thing he wants is Kairi beating down his door in what, with his luck, will _probably_ include a newly acquired fire spell in attempt to reprimand him.

“No! C’mon, please don’t sic Kairi on me! As much as I know she’s excited to be off world in a totally non-life threatening way for once, we both know she’d storm back here in a heartbeat if you gave her so much as an inkling of a reason!”

There’s another pause, one that gives him a chance to sweep his gaze back over to Riku, and something in his chest gives a twinge.

“I won’t,” Riku relents. “As long as this isn’t made a habit.”

And there’s something there just under the surface, heavy and pleading and worrying, like neon and tar and the need to tread lightly but never stop. Suddenly the sea salt air is gone from his throat and he’s unable to breathe, lips parted like he’s got something to admit, something to say, something to—

It’s quelled and suffocated and unable to be placed a moment later.

“Of course it won’t happen again! I don’t know about you, but I think I’ve gotten my fill of ice-butt, thank you very much.”

_not for a while,_ a distant part of him whispers.

A single whisper. A prayer.

Sora doesn’t hear it, but he thinks he feels it anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> i miss writing.


End file.
